America’s Pastime, at a professional level, does not have a future in the middle of a residential neighborhood at Clawson City Park.
Summit Professional Baseball has withdrawn a proposal to build a new baseball stadium for a team to play an independent minor league schedule in 2012, according to City Manager Mark Pollock.
Pollock said David Martin, president of Summit Professional Baseball, called him Wednesday morning to withdraw the plans after more than 100 residents opposed to the proposal showed up Tuesday night for a public hearing during the monthly planning commission meeting.
The withdrawal comes after an evening in which the planning commission listened to four hours of discussion, for and against the $1 million investment, before voting to table the agenda item until the developer could answer questions regarding traffic and parking at the September public meeting.
“I was informed this morning (by Martin) that he’s going to drop his proposal,” Pollock said. “It looks like a ‘dead deal.’ (Martin) said it was too much to answer in too short a time. There were too many questions he needed to get resolutions to, mostly about parking and traffic.”
The four hours of discussion was the longest the planning commission could have gone, telecast in its entirety on cable television, Pollock said.
“The capabilities of recording is four hours — the cable television (film department) filled two tapes to record,” Pollock said.
The proposed new stadium would have been on five acres of the 39-acre park, north of the football stadium, where a baseball diamond, softball/little league baseball diamond and soccer field are currently located.
The proposal would have created a new baseball diamond with seating for 1,500 fans, reconstructed two softball/little league baseball diamonds and moved the soccer field to a vacant area at Clawson High School, according to city planner Vidya Krishnan.
Amateur baseball and softball games will continue to be played at Clawson City Park, but on the current fields, not on newly constructed facilities, Pollock said.